If you want to take out crime - do it at the source or check the cause for the crime first./i?

Shouldn't be too difficult to rearrange the worlds wealth equally, distribute the workload evenly to the populace, remove humans innate competitiveness, get rid of all people that are insane / have no self control, control the crazy teenagers and rewrite the rules of most societies. Lets get to work on that....

Shouldn't be too difficult to rearrange the worlds wealth equally, distribute the workload evenly to the populace, remove humans innate competitiveness, get rid of all people that are insane / have no self control, control the crazy teenagers and rewrite the rules of most societies. Lets get to work on that....

The people in the advanced countries now face a choice: we can express justified horror, or we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes. If we refuse to do the latter, we will be contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead. - Noam Chomsky

The issues you raise are solvable, and each one has been addressed at some point in some culture (except competitiveness but that would be foolish to remove), we just need to be willing to look at the cause.

Actually, didn't you hear about Australia banning tiny titties in porn? [theweek.com] After all, women with small breasts who are of legal age may play the role of underage girls in pornography, and that's like a single step removed from child pornography, which we all know causes nuclear devastation and must be stopped at all costs.

You have already done more to protect the rights of common people than most governments in the world have in years.

This really makes you wonder how a shadowy group of people on the internet have more influence than elected officials and regulatory boards. Of course, I guess that's because they have completely different goals... we are possibly seeing the dawn of a new world here.

You have already done more to protect the rights of common people than most governments in the world have in years.

The average Western government each allows tens of millions of people to enjoy basic freedoms under the rule of law with a reasonably impartial justice system. By the standards of perfection, everywhere is awful; by contrast with justice in many places 40 (Spain, if you're gay?), 50 (Southern US, if you're black?) or 200 (Britain or France, if you're poor and steal a loaf of bread?) years ago, governments are in some areas doing really well. And if we spend a moment imagining ourselves as a chattel-wife in Saudi Arabia for a moment or held at gunpoint for everything around us in Somalia, suddenly that horrible rights-denying US doesn't seem so bad.

It's clear that things have been getting worse over the past 30 years in the West. It's clear that we could demand and do a lot better. It's also clear that lulzsec's civil disobedience is having some sort of effect, although it's not quite clear how it'll play out (maybe it'll just be used as an excuse to impose more stringent anti-terror[tm] laws on the Internet?). But, when compared with history and the world in general, protecting the rights of common people is something your government almost certainly does more of every day than lulzsec. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water, even if the baby is sick.

>It's clear that things have been getting worse over the past 30 years in the West.

Really? Since 1981? So the 1970s was as good as we got? What about the 70s oil and energy crisis? Watergate? The Vietnam war? Pol Pot, and the West's apathy towards him? Pinochet leading a CIA-backed coup? Not to mention Margaret Thatcher.

The West has had ups and downs. You can certainly cherry pick things we've screwed up, but there are a lot progress being made behind the scenes. Sure, there's moral panics over terrorism

The fact that the President not only could be impeached, but was impeached, shows how great things were. You think that's going to happen again?

The Vietnam war?

This was a stain on the US, yes, but it ended in the middle of the decade. It also admitted a huge amount of popular and well-publicised protest. You even almost got rid of conscription - elimination of the Selective Slavery System, unfortunately, hasn't happened.

Pol Pot, and the West's apathy towards him? Pinochet leading a CIA-backed coup?

Yeah... it was more a braino than a typo: in my head I said \approx, which I could write =~, but that should be written =\sim, but I'll omit the LaTeX markup lest I sound even more pompous than usual. For some reason I've done that sort of thing often when de-TeXing for a general audience, although usually the formula is slightly more complex! The upshot is that I end up looking an idiot, which everyone surely agrees I deserve;-).

The other guy said he hates me with a passion (I wonder if it keeps him up at night?) but that Professr3 fails at reading comprehension. Given the context of your post, I'm going to chalk this one up to tragic irony.

Clinton's technical impeachment was trivial, partisan and he was acquitted. It was one of IIRC three attempts, the other two of which never reached trial. It was essentially an abuse of the impeachment process and didn't work. It was technically an impeachment but in spirit a waste of time.

Proceedings towards Nixon's impeachment received bipartisan support [washingtonpost.com] from the House Judiciary Committee, appropriately targeting an abuse of power with the Articles of Impeachment [watergate.info]. Everyone knew what the outcome woul

His commuting of Libby's sentence alone should have been grounds for some sort of investigation. That was just blatent cronyism. Libby is found guilty in a court of law on found counts of impeding a federal investigation... but the investigation would possibly have turned up evidence of political games even more embarassing, so Bush thanks him by commuting his sentence. The message is clear: "Laws are for the little people to follow, not us."

As much as I hate to defend Dubya (I personally think he'll rank in the top 5 of shitty presidents) the Libby pardon was all Cheney who basically rode Dubya 24/7 until he got what he wanted. If you look at Bush's history he was always against pardons and did surprisingly few as governor and as president, less than one quarter of Clinton for comparison.

As for TFA the problem is we in the west have left behind actually protecting children a dozen exits ago and now are firmly in the total batshit red scare ter

I understand your point, but it is factually wrong. Nixon was not impeached. There was a vote to begin impeachment proceedings, but the proceedings were never completed. The proceedings against Clinton were completed. Clinton was impeached.

Just because the average person thinks "impeached" means "removed from office" doesn't allow you to use the words wrongly. Impeachment is like a grand jury indictment. The case has to be brought before the grand jury. They started the process to get Nixon's case t

Even though I believe the impeachment process worked in Nixon's case but were abused against Clinton, you're right that it doesn't mean I should misuse the technical term "impeachment". I should have talked in terms of the effectiveness of "impeachment proceedings" or something. Sorry.

The government can spy on everybody, and shouldn't, but does; but they aren't acting on it very much.

Yes well, amassing power and abusing power at the same time doesn't tend to work so well. Dictatorship 101 says that by the time the public starts protesting, it should already be too late. The barriers, the self-imposed compartmentalization and restrictions the government puts on itself are nothing but curtains the government could pull aside or pierce at will. Handing them more and more power is like sticking your hand deeper and deeper in a bear trap on the logic that it hasn't snapped shut yet.

The average Western government each allows tens of millions of people to enjoy basic freedoms under the rule of law with a reasonably impartial justice system.

No, the average Western government doesn't "allow" this, it's just along for the ride. The social structure and memes generated in the last couple hundred years allow it. And they are slowly but surely being eroded, in part by said governments.

Civil disobedience is not abiding, and thus breaking, a law in order to protest its injustice -- protesters use civil disobedience so that the crime and the unjust punishment can be starkly juxtaposed in the public eye. Lulzsec have broken only laws regarding computer fraud, yet they were not protesting computer fraud laws they thought unjust, they were protesting laws of censorship, i.e. they committed a different crime in retaliation for

The people who label themselves lulzsec have done more than one thing. Civil disobedience is the refusal to obey a law considered unjust.

So, random acts of vandalism aren't really civil disobedience. But releasing information demonstrating corruption is likely civil disobedience - it's implicitly or explicitly argued that you believe such information should be public and that laws to the contrary are unacceptable and worth breaking. Looking somewhere in between, a DDoS might be civil disobedience - if some

Civil disobedience is not abiding, and thus breaking, a law in order to protest its injustice -- protesters use civil disobedience so that the crime and the unjust punishment can be starkly juxtaposed in the public eye. Lulzsec have broken only laws regarding computer fraud, yet they were not protesting computer fraud laws they thought unjust, they were protesting laws of censorship, i.e. they committed a different crime in retaliation for what they saw as injustice -- that is a HUGE difference.

Is it, now?Indigenous people pitching tents on the lawn of the parliament is considered civil disobedience, even when they aren't protesting tent pitching laws.Demonstrators sitting down in the road to stop a cortege of cars are demonstrating civil disobedience, even when they're not protesting pedestrian laws.

In short, you got this totally wrong. Civil disobedience is when you refuse to follow a civil order. That kind of follows from the name, really. Whether the order has anything to do with your cause

if we spend a moment imagining ourselves as a chattel-wife in Saudi Arabia for a moment or held at gunpoint for everything around us in Somalia

It's clear that things have been getting worse over the past 30 years in the West.

So you're saying that one excuses the other here? "Our women are still allowed to drive and criminals aren't pointing guns at us, so it's okay for us to give up a little of our freedoms. It's all still good..."

Yeah, it's all still good, but like you said, definitely on the decline. There's always some sort of boogeyman (commies, pedophiles, terrorists,...) to cause a scare. It's been only a few months since there was talk of the White House trying to implement a "shutdown" for the internet in a state of em

So you're saying that one excuses the other here? "Our women are still allowed to drive and criminals aren't pointing guns at us, so it's okay for us to give up a little of our freedoms. It's all still good..."

Since several respondents seem to have jumped to this conclusion, no, I'm definitely not saying that. I'm only saying what I said: we should acknowledge the good in what we have established (as well as the bad). There neither cancelling out of the good by the bad nor of the bad by the good.

Considering that NATO is getting their panties in a bunch over Anonymous I'm expecting that they're not going to suggest an open Internet as we know it today.

You know what irritates me perhaps more than is healthy? Thanks to the Internet we've seen a decline in amateur radio and shortwave listening, ham radio being the only true decentralised communications medium relying on n

Or the resurgence is an old world. Hacking is nothing new, neither is the hacker culture. Wikileaks was the spark that rekindled the soldering embers that once were in the 80s and 90s with their unwavering pursuit toward exposing organizations and governments (regardless of whether you agree with their actions or not). I expect we will see much more of these types of groups and actions until the US adopts serious net neutrality laws or in (one might wish) that they add net neutrality or freedom of informati

You have already done more to protect the rights of common people than most governments in the world have in years.
This really makes you wonder how a shadowy group of people on the internet have more influence than elected officials and regulatory boards. Of course, I guess that's because they have completely different goals... we are possibly seeing the dawn of a new world here.

A world that is increasingly-connected by computer networks is a new world, and this is one fascinating aspect of it. Powerful governments and institutions have embraced technologies that are barely understood by businessman/bureaucrats/elites and are difficult for them to protect and control; despite this, they've used their power to place this tech at the foundation of practically everything in the industrialized world. Typical short-term thinking, done in the pursuit of greed, hegemony, and increased p

Don't tell someone what ideals they can and can't support... Lest you want to be labeled a Fascist. There's a lot of dolts on the Internet, and they're paying the price now for using the same password at 100 websites.I'm enjoying the show, to be honest. LulzSec haven't harmed anyone yet, and they've obviously got quite the audience. While only 270Kish twitter followers, I'm sure there's many more lurking it who don't use twitter that are following the story.

Lulzsec is just another part of a bigger cultural shift (wikileaks and "anonymous" as well) away from servitude into actual civil awareness. Yes, they quite often catch people in the cross-fire. Yes, they often act without any real goals, just to humiliate. However, they serve a role that has long since been shrugged off by people around the world, that of an actual opposition to the status quo.

I'm not an anarchist, but there is something poetic about a group of sarcastic hackers achieving what people want better than their government.

If I were you, I'd get used to it, because people are tired of the corruption. If it takes people like Lulzsec to actually get something done, so be it. There is a time for everything and the time for quiet obedience is past.

It's all fun and games until someone hacks your bank, releases your identity, then you have lots of credit cards opened up in your name. "But your bank was secure and they were just doing it for the lulz!!!"
People only care about this stuff when it happens to them. Even if you think what lulzsec is doing is a good thing, it encourages hackers with worse motives to try the same tactics with far more disastrous results. But of course, you think it's a great idea, so sure, let's let them continue!

This is an open discussion forum, and yes, people can tell you things, including what you should encourage and what you should get used to. And the readers make up their own minds based on information, rhetoric and their own reasoning.

I know there are going to be lot of nay sayers calling this anarchy but they think we don't know are we forgot that defying the "law" was the only way so many countries got their freedom from the Brits (Didn't Aussies have a freedom fight?)

Many people are just sheep, as has always been the case. Those with no morals or values will surrender anything when told to, while those who stand for what they believe will keep being called terrorists. Eventually, though, the "terrorists" win - and not in the bad way. Then they are called heroes.

The cyber rights movement has begun. No to cyber segregation. Australian ISP's are a lot like the bus companies in the deep south.
All that expensive infrastructure needs a lot of users paying in every month.
Just as empty buses rolled, users can find other isp's.

More accuratly, it's part of the Commonwealth. They are politically independant, but they parted from Britain on good terms (Unlike the US), and so maintain close historical and political ties. Same as Canada.

A note on Telstra's new filter. - and I suspect this has been done on purpose to make people think that the actual filter that labour is planning isnt all that bad in some kind of last ditch smooch attempt on Conroy - possibly due to Telstra and co getting left out of the NBN. If you look at what labour has proposed, it goes far beyond just the worst of the worst child abuse material and hence the public backlash. So I can't see any groups like Lulzsec getting all uperty about this filter since it is only blocking the very nasty stuff. Anyway nobody likes kiddy porn except the broken. So I can only imagine this is part of a FUD campaign by Telstra and Conroy to ease Ausies into his planned censorship regime and seed the idea that the whole filtering concept is infact just about blocking child abuse material - which is just not true.

Yeah they aren't (ab)using the filter to block anything but the "worst of the worst" now, but the whole uproar over the original filter was unaccountable bureaucrats deciding what would go on the SECRET filter list. I don't see how Telstra deciding what goes on the secret filter list is really any better.

When some idiots claim that the works of Bill Henson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson) are child pornography (and thus a significant portion of classical and renaissance paintings and sculpture) th

Our local resource center for our less affluent residents provides free internet access. It is supposed to have a filter for porn, only porn. Someone asked me to help them find information on medical marijuana and it was blocked by the filter. It wasn't porn but it was blocked. I asked the manager what else is being blocked? They didn't know. They didn't know how to change it either. I just hope no one dies because of that filter.
Filter's always filter out more than they are supposed to, including legitimate political dissent. How free is your country if the government can control what you see, hear and read?

I think the Nanny state needs to back the F off and let the people decide what they want to block. I don't need the gubbermint to tell me what I can or can't see. Those who control the flow of information believe themselves to be your master. Information is power.

Federal police would get lists from around the world.
Write ins for medical, faith and political issues will then start to flow.
If you can print and post a nice letter, put together a reason why a site should be banned, it might be added:)

I imagine that once the infrastructure for censorship is in place, it'll be used for other content deemed illegal. Copyright infringment is first to come to mind, but there is the possibility of future courts issuing blocking orders for material found to be libelous, extreme pornography, hate speech (With all the vagueness that term implies), or an invasion of the privacy of some celebrity who wants their latest scandal kept out of the news.

I don't care if they "blame" lulz... or if lulz really made a difference. Telstra sucks for agreeing to "filter" the Internet. Perhaps it's "great" they want to be like China and filter the Internet. The Internet does not want those filters.

"The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" -- John Gilmore, 1993. That meaning existed llong before Telstra existed, and long after they will.

Telstra - be quiet. You don't have the backbone to provide the freedom of Internet communication to the

Telstra - be quiet. You don't have the backbone to provide the freedom of Internet communication to the masses.

I actually wondered if they used this as an excuse to back out of putting the filter in because they don't really want to. Of course if they really did have a backbone they'd tell the government "no. this won't work, and even if it did work it would be wrong", but at least this way they won't turn on the filter but aren't directly disobeying the government.

The only awareness they are generating is in the law enforcement and security services. Judging by the notably simple skill set needed to pull off their attacks these guys somehow assume they are invulnerable themselves and this belief comes from them thinking they are the smartest people to ever turn on a computer. Chances are they will regret this attitude in the near future. Internet security does not truly exist 100% in the real world. If you plug in to the Internet you are taking on a substantial risk

Never understood this particular point of view. Government is there to function as your guardian and benefactor, with your elected representatives at helm. Corporation functions as a closed entity with no other goal then profit, even if that profit comes at expense of everything else (see: Bhopal).

Granted many modern governments in large countries became almost corporate in nature, almost as closet, corrupt and nepotistic as their megacorp counterparts. But at least they're still responsible for their actio

But at least they're still responsible for their actions to you, the voter, and you have, however small, power to change its course.

"However small"? The same could be said about corporations (to a certain extent). The problem is that voters don't all agree with one another (which just divides that power). Some people who do want change will likely often be vastly outnumbered by those who don't (or don't care). I don't believe that giving up is the answer, though.

The top modern corporations control so much wealth and property that they simultaneously have in most areas a near monopoly on goods and services and a monopsony on labor such that the vast majority of people are essentially slaves to the corporate elite in one way or another. We who don't own property can't own property, even though it is significantly less expensive and more stable than renting at hugely artificial rates, we have to work our asses off for absolutely nothing and there are no jobs and no op

That's true, but if everyone stopped supplying them with money, they would eventually run out. Now, I know the chances of that happening are likely very unlikely, but my point is that he mentioned people having at least some degree of power over the government. The same can be said of corporations to a certain extent.

In fact, many times in history have companies become so powerful that the populace they rule over actually starves to the point where they can no longer produce anything for the upper class, and die out. Mind you, most of these companies have been religions, which can be very convincing. It happened to the Mayans, the Romans, and to the Vinland Nord colony, the easter island civilization, among many others. Corporations and other fiscal entities can continue on until they bleed the people to death. The only

Actually, I'd say you have more control over most corporations than people do over most governments.At least with corporations you can vote against them if you don't like what they are doing (not give them cash).Try that with a government and if you're "lucky" and live in the "free" countries they'll lock you up, unlucky and they'll shoot you.

How do you vote against corporations "with cash" if you don't mind me asking? Many if not most of them don't accept any cash from general populace - their business is with smaller corporations or governments, such as major oil companies, construction companies, chemical companies, energy companies, defense companies and so on.

Conformity is the objective in most places.. Critical thinking is an anathema.. The fact is that government is a creation of those with the most capital, so naturally they will set the agenda to suit their needs

You know what's really sad? When you talk about how much of government in USA and much of West functioned in 60s and 70s, you get called "young" by modern young adults like you with no grasp on history whatsoever.

Strongly opinionated, certain of one's own correctness and completely clueless. To quote Churchill, "the best argument against democracy is a 15-minute talk with an average voter".

It's been reported elsewhere (though I have no link to hand) that the actual change isn't that Telstra are deciding to not implement it at all, but that they're considering only implementing the anti-naked-children bit of it, and not the other list, given that not many people are likely to stand up and say "Don't cut off my nekkid children!"

Of course, it'd still be a step in that direction (and, yes, once the tech's there I imagine quietly adding URLs wont be hard at all), but it sort-of goes some way to ex

I would argue that any decision made based in immediate fear is not really the right decision; even if the decision has a positive outcome, it was made it for the wrong reasons and is therefore not representative of any particular notion of "right." No lesson was learned, and any future decisions are unaffected. This is only effective if fear can be maintained indefinitely, which is nearly impossible. It's indistinguishable, in the long run, to a step backward.

Totally correct, one of the few English speaking, western democracies institutes one of the most restrictive, broad and opaque internet filtering schemes in the world. Who cares about a measly 22 Million people? After all, countries under 50 Mil. Pop. shouldn't even be recognized. Now give us more stories on bitcoins, dammit!

With all the telco consolidation in the US, how many telcos will you have left to enjoy that ipad3 or android or Windows Phone ect on?
Soon you may face your largest/only two mobile telecoms offering a clean feed unless you opt out to enjoy the full web as an adult who showed photo ID and pay extra?
Whats tested in loser zones like the UK, Australia, Canada often gets a roll out later in the US.
Just as facebook/google is searched during a job application, do you think your request for an "opt out" will be

so, while its a disturbing thought, at least realize you are in good (virtual) company. many of us SEE this. we are not blind as the administrations think we are. we will remember this dark time in our history. I just hope we get beyond this and move forward as a culture.

right now, I only see backward movement in our cultural evolution, as a species.

I'll assume you are joking because Lulzsec is not a terrorist group. Branding them (or anyone for that matter) a terrorist group seems to be in vogue these days. Terrorists kill people (innocent or not) for their cause. Lulzsec has broken a few laws and maybe put a few companies in their place (Sony for example) but that's a far cry from terrorism.

Exactly, this is textbook terrorism. Very sad to see so many Slashdotters supporting an un-democratic, hateful and downright fascist group.

Anon/Lulsec want to destroy the open Internet and set themselves up as a dictatorship.

You are attributing way too many ulterior motives to a bunch of bored and technologically capable teenagers.

Fear can cause this - you paint the enemy black, and assign all sorts of negatives to them. It's a flaw in logic, but helps justify a person's feelings and actions towards who they perceive as a threat.

They're in it for the lulz, and being human, they tend to kick those they don't like more than those they like. Just like you do in your characterization of them. Except that you presumably don't ge

I'll reply to you, but this is for all the folks saying this is not terrorism. Terrorists are not always the people you describe. Same goes for pirates (those Somalians don't all walk around with a wooden leg and a parrot yelling "Arr matey!"). What a terrorist's primary goal is, is to create fear. So much fear that actions performed by that body (in this case, Telstra) will rethink, alter or even abandon their intentions or actions. LulzSec has done exactly that. Forget about what CNN & Co. are teachin